YOUR VIEW: 2013 is the year for Trinity on 280

Every New Year offers hope and anticipation that the coming twelve months will bring health, happiness and security for our families and communities. For thousands of residents along the Highway 280 corridor, hopes run very high that 2013 will be the year Trinity Medical Center is allowed to move forward with its relocation.

A hospital in the fastest growing area of Birmingham has been almost 15 years in the making, though construction stopped on the half-finished, state-of-the-art facility almost a decade ago. Trinity announced plans to complete the project in 2008 and received unanimous approval from the State more than two years ago. Unfortunately, as everyone knows, red tape in court - and red lights from Trinity's competitors - have caused delay after delay after delay.

But the lights on the hospital on 280 turned green last month when the Alabama Court of Civil appeals ruled unanimously to allow Trinity to move forward with relocation. Though the competitors are still jockeying for delay, Trinity looks forward to beginning construction as soon as legally possible.

Perhaps the New Year's wishes of thousands of Birmingham residents will come true.

If so, the community will quickly feel the positive impact of Trinity's relocation. In just the first year of development, the project will generate nearly 4,000 jobs, $125.5 million in job earnings, and more than $3.1 million in city and county tax revenues. In future years, hotels, office buildings and retail businesses will rise around the revitalized hospital, bringing thousands more jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars in economic benefits.

Smartly, Birmingham's City Council recognized the importance of keeping a project of this magnitude in city limits and struck a partnership with Trinity to split future tax revenues over the two decades. Unlike some other Birmingham-area hospitals, Trinity pays property and sales taxes and will continue to do so at the new location within Birmingham and Jefferson County. This means that Birmingham will not need a dime from present budgets to support this project and the project will increase city and county revenues beginning next year (barring additional legal delays caused by Trinity's competitors). There is no risk within this incentive structure: if Trinity does not succeed and generate tax revenues, the hospital will receive nothing. If Trinity is successful, economists estimate that tax collection over 15 years could top $142 million for the city, $36.9 million for Jefferson County, and $48 million for the schools.

World-class healthcare is a hallmark of our community. We are blessed with many fine hospitals and outstanding physicians and clinicians. But Birmingham needs high-quality care options outside of the downtown cluster, closer to where so many residents now work and live. Too many patients and ambulances have been forced to drive directly past the empty hospital building on 280 to access medical services further in town, often causing dangerous and unnecessary delays in care. A representative from Brookwood Medical Center, the hospital nearest the 280 area, testified under oath that patients have died on Highway 280 while attempting to reach medical care.

Those patients deserved better. Our community deserves better.

Like countless other Jefferson and Shelby County residents, I am hopeful 2013 is the year - because we need Trinity on 280 NOW.